THE BRITISH ACADEMY 



THIRD ANNUAL SHAKESPEARE LECTURE 



Shakespeare and Germany 

By 

Professor Alois Brandl 

Of Berlin University 
President of the German Shakespeare Society 

On July 1, 1913 



New York 

Oxford University Press American Branch 

35 West 32nd Street 

London : Humphrey Milford 

Monograph 



THE BRITISH ACADEMY 



THIRD ANNUAL SHAKESPEARE LECTURE 



Shakespeare and Germany 

By 

Professor Alois Brandl 

Of Berlin University 
President of the German Shakespeare Society 

On July 1, 1913 



New York 

Oxford University Press American Branch 

35 West 32nd Street 

London : Humphrey Milford 



1^1 3«- 



Copyright in the United States of America 

by the Oxford University Press 

American Branch 

1913 



.^V^ 



'CI.A35804t> 



THIRD ANNUAL SHAKESPEARE LECTURE 

SHAKESPEARE AND GERMANY 

By Professor ALOIS BRANDL 

OF BERLIN UNIVERSITY 
PRESIDENT OF THE GERMAN SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY 

July ], 1913. 

With sentiments of profound reverence and gratitude I would 
say as the prologue to my discourse, and I feel sure that millions 
of my countrymen would say it with me, that the greatest boon 
which has ever come from England to Germany is the supreme and 
permeating influence of William Shakespeare. 

Several English writers have benefited our folk. Dickens gave 
us the novel of charity, Walter Scott the novel of history, Thack- 
eray the novel of reality ; Byron became an inspiration to Goethe 
and Heine ; Carlyle still proves a valuable educator of our nation ; 
but Shakespeare has swayed and turned the whole current of out 
literature. 

Until the middle of the eighteenth century, the old imperial race 
of Middle Europe knew only two sources of poetical art from 
abroad: the ancients, and France. Latin and Greek authors were 
introduced by our clergy and our schools, French authors by our 
nobility and better-class citizens. There were wars between 
French and German rulers on the right and on the left banks 
of the Rhine, but they could not prevent, could not even interrupt, 
this fraternity of minds ; the culture of Germany had for centuries 
developed principally through intercourse and through rivalry 
with her western neighbour. England for many centuries had 
nothing to say. Neither Chaucer nor Spenser had attracted the 
attention of German writers. Elizabethan plays, no doubt, were 
acted in German towns and courts by English comedians ; but only 
their subjects made an impression, their acting and staging were 
admired ; the word of Shakespeare was not heard, nor was his per- 
sonality felt. Milton, the strongest man among English poets, 
stirred the German republicans of the North and the South, the 
Hamburgers and the Swiss ; he was the first English writer who 
touched the German soul ; but he could never become popular ; he 



4 THIRD ANNUAL SHAKESPEARE LECTURE 

soared too high in the sphere of abstraction ; he was only a 
prophet, a forerunner of the master. The Spectator did become 
popular, Robinson and Gulliver were read even in our villages ; but 
what they had to offer was only poetry of the foot — to use a happy 
expression of Professor Herford — not poetry of the wing; thej'^ 
proved suggestive and amusing, but did not contain any revela- 
tions. The tide did not turn until, a short time before the French 
Revolution, Shakespeare conquered Germany with his word and 
his thought : then England, for the first time, had a voice on the 
Rhine and by the Danube, and became a force in the growth of 
German culture. 

The man who was chiefly instrumental in bringing about this 
change was Lessing. Many educated Germans felt about Shake- 
speare as he felt, and some of our literarj^ men were working in the 
same direction in which he worked; but Lessing produced the 
strongest argument. He started from the opinion of Voltaire, 
whose critique and imitations of Shakespeare had done most 
towards calling the attention of German readers to the English 
dramatist. The great Voltaire had learned in England that 
Shakespeare had a large soul, and was a genius b}^ nature ; but 
he found him a sinner against the rules of Aristotle as deduced by 
the classicists. No, said Lessing; Shakespeare does not sin against 
the rules of Aristotle, if you but understand them properly; 
Shakespeare agrees with him in all essential things much better 
than Voltaire himself. As an example, Lessing compared the ap- 
pearance of the ghost in Voltaire's Semiramis, in broad daylight, 
at the council-assembly, announced only ^y a clap of thunder, 
with the ghost in Hamlet, which appears at midnight, on the 
ramparts of Elsinore, seen first by the lonely sentries, through 
whose observations we are well prepared for what it has to tell 
Hamlet. A clearer and more convincing comparison could not be 
given, and Shakespeare at once took his place on the throne 
vacated by Voltaire. Evidently, Lessing pitted one of the two 
literary authorities recognized in his country at the time against 
the other, the ancients against the French — more perhaps than 
was strictly legitimate. He thus succeeded in calling in a third 
authority, the English; and by multiplying our authorities he 
gave us greater confidence to think independently. 

This discussion might have remained a transitory literary con- 
troversy : but circumstances raised it to the position of a starting- 
point for great deeds. 

Germany wanted dramas. Many of the princes and princelings 



SHAKESPEARE AND GERMANY 5 

who ruled it maintained theatres in their residences : this was per- 
haps the only noteworthy service done to old Germany by the 
' Kleinstaaterei '. The wealthier towns followed suit, and built 
theatres of their oAvn. The people, tired of sermons, and unable to 
take an interest in politics or sports, sometimes even forbidden to 
travel, flocked to the performances. A successful play could make 
its author famous, and his work influential in the highest degree. 
But in order to be successful a play had to be poetical, had to con- 
tain a body of thought, and had to be clothed in fine rhetoric ; for 
the average German, though a poor politician, had by his good 
schools become an intelligent person, had a satchelful of solid 
knowledge on his back, and would not be satisfied with superficial 
farces and operettas; he wanted to be amused intelligently, and 
this demand for a literary drama at the time of Lessing was ex- 
actly met by "Shakespeare. 

A negative circumstance must not be forgotten : in Germany no 
strong tradition of home-made dramas stood in the way of Shake- 
speare, as was the case in France, where the respect for Corneille, 
Racine, Moliere, and their schools was a bar against the Eliza- 
bethan. The very poverty of the German native drama before 
Goethe and Schiller was Shakespeare's ally. ' So our virtues lie 
in the interpretation of the time.' 

Translators assisted Lessing in making Shakespeare known and 
understood, but imitators planted him in German soil. It was his 
good luck again that his first imitators were our classics, who 
moulded the entire taste of the following generations. Lessing 
himself led the way, and borrowed his blank verse. Young Goethe 
took over the free and almost lawless structure of the Histories, 
and, in addition, he borrowed a number of details which we find 
scattered throughout his works. 

In the first part of his Faust, for example, the appearance of the 
' Erdgeist ' was suggested by that of the spirit of Julius Caesar in 
Brutus's tent ; the meeting of Faust with the brawling students by 
the scene where Prince Hal turns up in the midst of the Fal- 
staff" company; Margaret's low-minded widow-companion, Frau 
Schwertlein, by the nurse in Romeo and Juliet ; the fatal duel of 
Valentine by that of Tybalt ; the insanity of Margaret by that of 
Ophelia. Nor was Schiller less indebted to Shakespeare than 
Goethe. How much he learned from Shakespeare is best seen by 
comparing the two brothers in his Robbers with the sons of 
Gloucester in King Lear, or the conspiracy of Tell with that in 
Julius Caesar. Goethe and Schiller were never slavish imitators. 



6 THIRD ANNUAL SHAKESPEARE LECTURE 

but their drama is, in essence, a plant from the seed of Shakespeare. 
There is also an original drama of Germany, of an absolutely dif- 
ferent t^^pe : it is the musical Buhnenfestspiel of Richard Wagner. 
From the time that Shakespeare was thus naturalized in Ger- 
many, the literary drama has become a most important factor in 
German life. It has attracted our best poets, so much so 
that the most characteristic portion of our literature must 
not merely be read, like modern English literature, which can 
be enjoyed on the banks of the Nile or on an ostrich farm in 
South Africa almost as well as in London; but if you mean to 
do justice to the best modern German literature, you must go 
to the theatre and hear it. Consequently, a good theatre is a 
necessary part of the equipment of every German town of any 
dimensions ; any place without it is looked down upon as phi- 
listine, is avoided by well-to-do people, and is considered a mere 
Nest, because it does not enable its inhabitants to enjoy the 
most interesting part of national literature. It is astonishing to 
remark what sacrifices a middle-sized German town of, say, 20,000 
people will make to procure a theatre. Societies and individuals 
will make contributions for years together till they have collected 
enough to begin building. On a fair site the fair building rears its 
head ; flower-beds are laid out in front of it ; the most modern ap- 
pliances are sought out for the stage ; there is a foyer provided 
where the audience may saunter in the intervals, to wish each other 
good evening and doubtless to exchange brief comments on the 
play : a feeling of festivity, ' Festlichkeit ', reigns everywhere. In- 
stead of demanding rent, the municipality often makes a special 
allowance to enable the manager to engage a good cast. Above all, 
the people themselves go to the theatre regularly ; they often sub- 
scribe for a certain number of seats a week, and thus compel the 
manager to keep a variety of plays in stock, a repertory. They 
take good and indifferent plays as they come, and are enabled in 
this way to compare, to comprehend, to relish poetical life and 
beauty, and to despise mere sensation. A literary atmosphere 
pervades the society of such a town, animates its meetings, and 
brightens the hearts. The blessings of this repertory theatre, 
which is an essential feature of the modern German ' Gartenstadt ', 
we owe principally to Shakespeare. He has given us the plays 
which at the outset drew the largest audiences, which trained the 
best actors and critics, and which were taken as models by the 
more gifted play-writers. No doubt his name would be the best 
with which to inaugurate also an English repertory theatre, and 



SHAKESPEARE AND GERMANY 7 

to induce English people to return to their pre-Cromwellian habits 
of going to the theatre regularly. 

Even nowadays the theatre is the stronghold of the Shakespeare 
cult in Germany. There are some 180 German companies, and 
they maintain in their repertory about twenty-five plays of Shake- 
speare. On looking up the statistics published every year in the 
Shakespeare- J aJirhuch with regard to the frequency of perform- 
ances, one finds at the head of the list such serious plays as Ham- 
let, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice. On 
an average, throughout the Fatherland, three or four plays of 
Shakespeare are performed every evening. In Berlin, the theatri- 
cal capital, it sometimes happens that on five or six successive 
evenings as many different plays of his are to be seen. Whenever 
the supply of modern plays fails for a time, Shakespeare is called 
in, and is sure to save the financial situation. 

A poet who is so frequently heard in the theatre is much 
stronger than a poet who is merely read in books : this explains 
the miraculous popularity which Shakespeare enjoys in Germany. 
If one wishes to gauge the significance of Shakespeare for the mass 
of German people, one need only open Biichmann's Collection of 
' Winged Words ' ; there one sees with astonishment how intensely 
the German lives in Shakespeare and speaks his words. The ex- 
pressions ' something is rotten in the state of Denmark ', or ' ca- 
viare to the general ' come as readily to the lips of the German as 
of the Englishman. Thousands speak with Hamlet of ' To be or 
not to be ', and with Prince Henry of ' a world in arms '. From 
Midsummer Night's Dream was borrowed the burlesque phrase 
' Well roared, lion ', from Measure for Measure the ' tooth of 
time ', from Lear ' the learned Thebans ', and ' every inch a king ', 
as well as the inevitable ' last not least ', which is even more often 
employed by Germans than by the English themselves. All the 
other British authors together have not yielded as many winged 
words as Shakespeare alone ; no other foreign author, not even 
Homer, approaches him in such a degree of popularity ; and one 
has to turn to the Bible to find a more influential work of foreign 
origin : only this book of books soars even above Shakespeare. 

Remarkable as such adoption of metaphorical or witty phrases 
may be, still more significant is the fact that a series of common 
words have through him become part and parcel of daily usage. 
Professor Kluge, in a paper read to the German Shakespeare So- 
ciety in 1893, had some remarkable communications to make with 
regard to the augmentation of the German dictionary by Shake- 



8 THIRD ANNUAL SHAKESPEARE LECTURE 

speare. If Germans mean to greet each other with a typically 
German expression, urdeutsch, they say Heil — without dreaming 
that it is borrowed from the cry of the witches in Macbeth, ' Hail 
to thee '. The substantive Heini, equivalent to the ' home ' of the 
English language, is due to the translators of Shakes'peare ; for- 
merly it was used in German only adverbially, in words like 
heimkehren, ' return home '. Halle, as corresponding to English 
' hall ', had died out in Germany shortly after Luther, it is not 
found in literary use for centuries ; but in Klopstock, a notable ad- 
mirer of Shakespeare, the word reappears, and bears the same ex- 
alted signification, ' hall of a castle ', as it does in Shakespeare, and 
not that of ' entrance hall ', as in everyday English. Even the 
use of the word Sect for champagne arose in connexion with 
Shakespeare. In the eighteenth century Sect was employed by 
the German only for heavy wines such as were made from dried 
berries in Spain and in the Canary Islands ; in this sense the word 
is employed by Shakespeare too, when he makes FalstafF such a 
lover of ' sack '. But when the FalstafF actor Ludwig Devrient in 
Berlin came weary and thirsty from the theatre to the tavern of 
Luther and Wegener in the Charlottenstrasse, and wanted cham- 
pagne, he continued in the tenor of his Falstaff-part to call for 
' Sect ' — an expression that landlord, guests, and waiters quickly 
adopted and successfully transmitted to the world of Shakespear- 
ians outside. This is real popularity. In short, when the German 
laughs or drinks or philosophizes, when he enters a castle or re- 
turns to his home, the spirit of Shakespeare is ever at his side, 
thinks for him and jokes with him, like a right good friend. 

Politicians and statesmen have not failed to make use of this 
power of Shakespeare over the German people. ' Hamlet is Ger- 
many ' impatiently exclaimed Freiligrath, the friend of liberty, 
to his hesitating countrymen a short time before 1848. In opposi- 
tion to him, Bismarck compared Hamlet to Napoleon III. Alto- 
gether Bismarck, in his student da.ys in Gottingen and associating 
freely with Englishmen and Americans, had not only acquired a 
deep reading knowledge of Shakespeare, but had also to some ex- 
tent lived many a FalstafF scene on his own account. Prince 
Harry, who to all appearance had wasted his youth with tippling 
beer-swillers, but who, by this means, obtained a deep knowledge 
of men and things, and later, becoming serious, surprises every one 
by the sudden ripeness he shows, was one of Bismarck's favourite 
characters all his life long. He also knew how to find support in 
Shakespeare when he enthusiastically called out the masses against 



SHAKESPEARE AND GERMANY 9 

the parties. He was sure that if he clothed his thoughts in 
Shakespeare's words they would best appeal to the hearts of his 
countrymen. 

In the world of art and science, too, many a scholar, as is but 
natural, has taken a deep interest in Shakespeare. In philosophy, 
Schopenhauer, the famous pessimist, may be mentioned ; few ob- 
jects escaped his iconoclasm ; one of these few was Shakespeare. 
Recently the psychologist Dilthey, in his well-known book on 
Inward Experience and the Poet, chooses some of his best illus- 
trations from the great English dramatist. He compares Shake- 
speare, the ' biographer of a thousand souls ', with Goethe, who 
is constantly autobiographical. He ascribes Shakespeare's won- 
derful gift of incarnating characters to his power of observation, 
to his piercing eye ever directed on the world outside, to his 
true English empiricism, and to the influence of an age the en- 
vironment of which was extremely favourable to his genius. In 
jurisprudence Shakespeare has been cited before the court. Jhe- 
ring, the author of Kampf urns Recht, has discussed Shylock's bond 
from the standpoint of Roman law. Kohler has scrutinized his 
tragic heroes as closely as if they were criminals. The question 
whether his knowledge of law gives ground for believing that he 
himself in his youth was employed in a court of justice has had 
no less interest for the German than for the English jurist. Medi- 
cal men have examined his poisons, and such of his characters as 
are tainted by insanity. Astronomers have proved his allegiance 
to the Ptolemaic system. Everywhere he attracts the far-seeing 
minds among the learned, and sets them riddles to solve, though 
he himself was but a dealer in the things of imagination, and, as 
far as we can see, not superior in knowledge to the average well- 
bred Londoner of his time. 

If we turn to philology we find that the study of English in 
German universities has to a great extent simply grown out of the 
endeavour to increase by courses of lectures the pleasure which 
professor and student alike were taking in Shakespeare. In Bonn, 
in Tubingen, in Marburg, peaceful little university towns, where 
poetry-loving souls were wont to foregather, were heard the first 
scholarly lectures on English literature, and for the most part 
they centred round Shakespeare. The love for him has helped to 
promote also those Early English studies which, like nothing else, 
impress the student with the original identity of English and Ger- 
man language, paetry, folklore, custom, and law. In order to 
fathom the depths of Shakespeare the first German society for 



10 THIRD ANNUAL SHAKESPEARE LECTURE 

literary research was founded, the Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesell- 
schaft, forty-nine years ago, long before a Goethe-Gesellschaft 
was thought of. The list of its members is headed by His Majesty 
the German Emperor, who is well known as a warm admirer es- 
pecially of Shakespeare's Histories. 

Again, our secondary schools have made the great Elizabethan 
the centre of English studies. German lads in the higher classes 
of the Gymnasium, especially in the North where the dialects bear 
a. closer resemblance to English, find it easy, with the help of the 
improved modern language teaching which has of late been de- 
veloped, to acquire his language sufficiently within a year, so that 
in the second year they can read with their teachers one or two of 
his plays, and enjoy them. He is always the favourite author, he 
brings out the best qualities of the professor, conveys to the stu- 
dents a keen interest in English institutions and history, and 
provides both with sound moral and political lessons. 

For the future, the well-wisher of the German people can but 
wish and hope that this love for Shakespeare will last and ever 
increase. We all feel that no one can enter into the enjoyment of 
his characters without becoming himself freer and greater; a na- 
tion that takes him for its leader cannot be other than a manly 
nation. And it is not the least of his merits that he is a friendly 
exponent of England in Germany. He has surrounded West- 
minster and Windsor, London Bridge and the Mermaid Tavern 
with a bright halo, and many a king of Old England, about whom 
no one on the Continent would have cared, has won through Shake- 
speare respect and fame. It makes a very considerable difference 
whether we come to know a nation only through the newspapers, or 
through poetry, especially through such a poet. Watching a na- 
tion through the press is like observing a neighbour through his 
office windows, where he is busy with his daily pursuits. But if you 
study a nation through its poetry, you as it were watch your 
neighbour through his oriel window sitting at ease in the midst of 
culture. Shakespeare is a permanent ambassador of England in 
Germany ; a most excellent ambassador, for he is accredited not 
only to the court, but to the whole German people; and his 
language, though always impressive, is never provocative. He 
stands before our eyes as a friend found and tested in days of need, 
an unwavering benefactor, and as a moral world power in very 
deed; therefore his mediation is sure to be of solid and lasting 
effect. 

This unique position which Shakespeare has attained in Ger- 



SHAKESPEARE AND GERMANY 11 

many, and which he promises to hold for a long time to come, is all 
the more striking as Shakespeare has paid no special attention to 
our people, seldom thought of them, and has by no means treated 
them with particular consideration. He makes fun of German 
clothing — of the broad hose, from the waist downwards all slops ; 
of German customs — fair Portia's ducal suitor from Saxony is 
described as ' very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and 
most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk ' ; of German watches 
— always being repaired, and never in order ; of the German tem- 
per, which, of course, is called hasty. Once, indeed, in the Merry 
Wives of Windsor, we come upon a friendly assertion : ' Germans 
are honest men ' ; but on looking closer one discovers that it is 
only the landlady of an inn who says so, and then only in order 
to clear a distinguished German traveller of the suspicion of 
horse-stealing. He has heard of Wittenberg, and makes Hamlet 
study there, but for the spiritual achievements of Wittenberg he 
has never a word. He makes Vienna the scene of Measure for 
Measure, but it is to him a town full of gross looseness and 
amours. He mentions the Switzers, but only as the mercenary life- 
guards of Hamlet's miserable uncle. From the national point of 
view, there is not the slightest reason why a German should feel 
enthusiastic about Shakespeare. After all, the cosmopolitan vein 
in the German character has been strong enough to ignore such 
compliments. 

Still, independence and spontaneity of action on the German 
side has not been altogether wanting. The impression which a 
poet produces always rests upon two factors : first, the quality of 
his work, and secondly, the predisposition of the reader. One and 
the same poem is apprehended differently, let me say, by a scholar 
who is well read in the classics, and by a countryman who is only 
versed in popular songs. Shakespeare was regarded differently 
by his own countrymen in the seventeenth century and in the nine- 
teenth century : at the time of Dryden, boisterous Falstaff was 
considered his happiest character, Hamlet was represented as a 
very dignified and courtly person with a majestic periwig, and the 
weird sisters in Macbeth, instead of appearing in supernatural awe, 
had to perform a burlesque dance. But Charles Lamb and many 
of his contemporaries worshipped Shakespeare as a mystical phi- 
losopher, and, according to their opinion, to represent his plays on 
the stage amounted almost to profanation. There is no less differ- 
ence of opinion about Shakespeare at present between his English 
and his German admirers. 



12 THIRD ANNUAL SHAKESPEARE LECTURE 

Strange as it may sound, it is a fact that there exist two Shake- 
speares, one on this, one on the other side of the North Sea, both 
fully developed, both felt as strong realities in life, literature, and 
the theatre. 

Allow me, for a moment, to describe the principal qualities of 
the German Shakespeare. 

First of all he is modern, because he is read and acted in trans- 
lations. The obsolete words and the quaint meanings of words 
which often puzzle his English reader, and sometimes even demand 
comment, are replaced by current phrases. His Elizabethan rug- 
gedness is almost too much smoothed over. In our classical trans- 
lation by Schlegel-Tieck the meaning is put forth so clearly that, 
when I had to reprint it in a popular edition, there was sometimes 
not even one passage to be explained in a whole play — so perfectly 
had the Tudor words been recast in lucid and up-to-date German. 
In consequence, a German reader and spectator feels himself in a 
way drawn closer to Shakespeare than a Londoner, who has no 
other choice than to take him in the original. It is easier in 
Germany than in his own country to apply his sentences to the 
programme of a brand-new party of writers or artists ; he lends 
himself with more freedom to questions of the day in Berlin or 
Munich than in London or Manchester. 

Another feature of the German Shakespeare results from the 
difference in national customs. In Germany reserve is not so 
strictly demanded as in England ; a loud laugh is considered less 
objectionable, even in cultivated society, and gestures are not so 
readily called extravagant. Imagine, therefore, how different a 
Falstaff scene, a meeting between lovers, an agitated discussion, 
must appear in a German theatre ! In this respect the German 
may even claim to be more faithful to the historical Shakespeare, 
who makes Romeo and Othello, when in excitement, roll on the 
floor, and Hamlet leap into Ophelia's grave to wrestle with her 
brother. German manners have remained a little more old-fash- 
ioned. Thus it comes that our Shakespeare, though he sounds 
more modern in words, looks more like the sixteenth century in 
manners. 

A third peculiarity of the German Shakespeare is one for which 
our classic writers are answerable, who so vigorously transformed 
him into new life. Margaret in Goethe's Faust has so much in 
common with the bride of Romeo, that an audience who sees them 
often finds it difficult to keep them quite separate. Even the ac- 
tress who impersonates Margaret one evening, will next evening, 



SHAKESPEARE AND GERMANY 13 

while acting the part of Juliet, unconsciously embody essential 
traits of the modest, patient German citizen girl in her representa- 
tion of the self-possessed and strong-minded daughter of Lord 
Capulet. Such blending of Shakespearian characters with those 
of favourite German plays happened very often in our good old 
Hoftheaters. 

In addition, there was the influence of our older critics, with 
Goethe once more at the head. Hamlet e.g. was described by 
him as a delicate soul on whose shoulders too heavy a task had been 
laid; no wonder, then, that German actors often played the part 
in too sentimental a fashion. At the present, without doubt, a 
strong reaction has set in; the reformers of our stage. Max 
Reinhardt and others, have discovered wonderful ways of showing 
Shakespeare in the broad daylight of realism and of the Jugendstil. 
But still English actors, when touring in Germany, though their 
performances of Shakespeare are often excellent, find it very 
difficult to please German spectators ; they put forth their Lon- 
don Shakespeare, but the Bey-liner sticks to his beloved German 
Shakespeare who is endeared to him through Goethe and through 
the translations of Goethe's clever disciple Schlegel. 

In the fourth place we have to consider the general expectations 
with which a nation will approach literature. If my students are 
brought into contact with Englishmen of their own age and condi- 
tions, they are always astonished at the English students' habit of 
asking: What benefit shall I derive from this or that new author.? 
Can he inspire me with a brighter outlook on life, or infuse into me 
greater strength of soul? Is he a noble educator like Words- 
worth.? Is he a delightful teacher like the ideal poet whom Sir 
Philip Sidney has painted in his famous Apology? 

Young Germans look at literature in a more disinterested way. 
They want to be shown life, as intense life as possible, which will 
enable them to pass, while reading, through all the experiences of 
the persons described, as if they were experiences of their own. 
They want, in following the dreams of the poet, to explore the 
heights and the depths of human nature — not to alter human na- 
ture. To them didactic verse savours neither of poetry, nor wit, 
nor invention: psychological truth in poetry is their heart's 
desire. It is natural that Shakespeare will fare very differently at 
their hands. Englishmen lay more emphasis on his wisdom, Ger- 
mans on his passion. To the Englishman — with the exception of 
Mr. Bernard Shaw, of course — Shakespeare is the national hero, 
with hardly any human weakness ; to the German the earlier and 



14 THIRD ANNUAL SHAKESPEARE LECTURE 

weaker attempts of Shakespeare are not only facts, but most 
interesting facts, from which to regard the wonderful heights he 
reached later. 

In consequence, English critics, as a rule, discard such rude 
plays of his juvenile period as Titus Andronicus or Henry VI, 
although the strongest external evidence speaks for their genuine- 
ness ; they would feel ashamed if their Shakespeare had really in- 
dulged in the ' Gothic ' horrors by which the cannibal revenge of 
Titus is provoked, and if he had really represented the brave 
heroine Joan of Arc as a profligate wench. To German students, 
in spite of their sincere respect for the ' Jungfrau von Orleans ', it 
does not matter if young Shakespeare, during his period of storm 
and stress, following Holinshed and other chroniclers, should have 
slightly overstepped the bounds of humanity. If his beginnings 
were crude, the brilliancy of his later works appears to them all 
the more striking. 

I do not wish to express an opinion concerning these two Shake- 
speares. To many an Englishman the German Shakespeare is 
sure to appear nationalized to such an extent as almost to wear 
the garb of a foreign poet. On the other hand, the German will 
argue that genius, the rarest gift which nature can bestow on a 
nation, never belongs to that nation exclusively, but to the whole 
of mankind ; and that there is no divine or human law which for- 
bids foreigners to penetrate into the genius of such a man, to amal- 
gamate themselves with him, until he becomes to them, by their 
sympathetic work, almost one of their own. But one thing is 
proved beyond doubt by the existence of these two Shakespeares ; 
that the Shakespearian spirit is alive and active in both countries. 
Only the most popular Avriters are objects of strife; as soon as an 
author is left in peace, it shows that he is dying — historians and 
philologists may bury him in their libraries. And there is no fear 
that the two Shakespearian parties will do any harm to each 
other. Let an opportunity arise for showing gratitude and love 
to Shakespeare, and both nations, yea, all civilized peoples, will 
stand up like one man, and hail him with one voice, as the greatest 
creator in literature. 

Such an opportunity will present itself in a short time, when we 
shall celebrate the 300th anniversary of his death — his first three 
centuries of immortality. If, on April 23, 1916, the world's hom- 
age to the poet of Hamlet and Lear will be rendered, as is hoped, 
here, in the capital of his country, the scene of his literary activity, 
it will be an assertion of the harmonizing power of poetry over 



SHAKESPEARE AND GERMANY 15 

distinctions of race, it will demonstrate the empire of Shakespeare 
of which Carlyle perhaps spoke even in too modest terms, and it 
will help us to realize that, after all, humanity is larger than na- 
tionality. 

Au revoir till Shakespeare Day, in 1916! 



MOV 



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